Dr. Sams makes another donation to area high school

ELIZABETHTON — Dr. Robert Sams always had a tradition of supporting his community. From serving as a member of the band while he was attending Elizabethton High School in the 1950s, he has found a way to give back to the community while he excelled in academics and his career. Sams would go on to be one of the most successful optometrists in Elizabethton over a 50-year-career while he found time to serve many years on the Elizabethton City School Board, including serving as chairman of the board for several years. Now that he has retired from his practice, Sams continues to find ways to give back to his community. Last year, he paid tribute to the band that he was a proud member of back during the time when Elizabethton High School was located in what is now T.A. Dugger Jr. High School and was operated by the county school board. Sams presented the band with a donation of $100,000 for a truck, so that the band could haul equipment and instruments during road games. Sams was not content to just give to his alma mater and the extracurricular organization where he had once been a member. He decided he needed to make donations to each of the four county high schools as well. He let each of the county high schools know of his intention to help them with some items that were difficult to fund through normal means. He asked the schools to provide him with a list of those needs. On Thursday, he provided his first donation to the county schools. He will provide $30,000 to Unaka High School for a list of five different needs. These include new first-down chains for the football field, padding to cover a hard wall behind the goals on the basketball court, improvements to the basketball gym's public address system and a new 10-second clock. Sams noticed that all the item on the list were for boys sports. He said that was not good enough and told the school leaders that they had to find something the girls needed him to fund as well. That was an easy task. The cheerleaders work long and hard throughout the year, and their uniforms are expensive to maintain. Sams agreed to provide each of the cheerleaders with a new uniform, from head to toe. Sams said he had only one requirement in order to receive his generosity. The school had to provide him with a thank-you card. Two high schools in Elizabethton and Carter County have now received generous contributions from Sams. He said he will soon be providing donations to the other high schools.